


Pale Green Dot

by Beleriandings



Series: In the midst of the innumerable stars [6]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, Brothers, Gen, Gondolin, Grief, Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Space AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 12:56:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3382337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The attack on the giant planet Angband should have been a success, but instead ended in death and destruction. After the battle is over, the new high king Turgon returns to his home planet of Gondolin and reflects on the death of his brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pale Green Dot

The thing that struck Turgon most, he thought after, was how much the  _same_  it all looked. Gondolin shone like a bright jewel against the velvet blackness of space, studded with stars, a warm and familiar little spot of green that grew and grew as what was left of his war fleet neared its home planet.

The great carrier ship’s console blinked reassuringly. “Transfer orbit insertion in… eight minutes and twenty four seconds.”

Turgon frowned, massaging his bandaged ribs where they had been broken in the battle, as he had been thrown by a stray blast against the wall of his little battle ranger. He had had a plastibrace put on in the medical bay once they were safely past the Anfauglith belt and into the inner ring - he had refused all of the painkillers they had offered him but for a single anaesthetic shot, for he knew he would need his head to be clear for the return to Gondolin and the ordered chaos that would inevitably ensue - but he could still feel the ache every time he took a breath, a reminder of what had passed. That this was no ordinary homecoming.

“Console” he said, pulling up the holographic screen and squinting at the readouts, “any signal from Húrin and Huor?” he held out little hope, but it was not in his nature to substitute that with no hope at all.  _Never had been_.

“No, king Turgon” said the calm, female voice of the console. “Contact with the Lords Húrin and Huor was broken at… three twenty six Anar Standard Time when you gave the order to retreat from Serech ring B. Communication link reestablishment failed.”

“Right” muttered Turgon, distractedly. He had expected this; had known it was inevitable, even, as he watched the ships of the house of Hador receding in the distance amongst the dust and debris of countless explosions, the fire of more blasts leaving bright streaks across his vision. He could still hear Húrin’s voice on the com;  _just go, my king. We’ll hold them off_.  _Should give you and yours a fighting chance, at least._ He had put Huor on the line then, and Turgon could practically imagine his cheerful grin as he had said,  _hey come on, uncle Turgon… I can still call you that? It’s been a while. But you know what? One day there’s gonna be a new star in the sky, because of us._

Turgon still didn’t understand what Huor had meant by that, and now, he thought, he probably never would.

“Orbit insertion sequence commencing in ten… nine… eight…” the console interrupted Turgon’s thoughts, making him flinch, “…seven… six… five… four… three… two… one…” there was the familiar lurch as the ship’s thrusters were fired, “…orbit insertion successfully initiated.”

“Thank you” said Turgon automatically.

“You are welcome. But my software is programmed to alert you to changes in flight status, your Grace. I did nothing of note.”

 _Your Grace. The form of address used by the high kings of the Ñoldor._  Turgon swallowed, biting his lip. He thought of Fingon as he had last seen him in the video link, before the battle. He had looked different from how Turgon remembered him; he looked older and a little broader in the chest, carrying himself subtly differently, shoulders back and face turned upwards as he looked into the camera on his ship’s observation deck. (Turgon remembered wondering how much he himself had changed since his brother and he had seen each other last, all those years ago at Barad Eithel.)

Fingon wore the silver and blue flying gear of the high king, his hair cut shorter and bound back in gold beneath his display overlay flight helmet. He looked a king, Turgon remembered thinking, as much as their father ever had, and the way he had  _smiled_ … Turgon had wondered then, whether his return after all this time was really enough to have earned that smile. Now he knew it was not.

He clenched his hands on the grips by the sides of the console, as the artificial gravity gave a lurch.  _This carrier’s grav control room must have been damaged in one of the blasts_ , he thought.  _Still, we survived._

Turgon kept his hands on the cold metal even after the gravity stopped shifting, trying to ground himself. He pressed his eyes closed, and behind them played, inevitably, the same scene, over and over again. Fingon’s own ranger, the Valiant-II, the light of Anar glancing off her shielding as she broke out of the shadow of the great dark planet Angband… Turgon had watched in horror as the head of Morgoth’s elite team of balrog pilots in their monstrous hulking ships – equipped with plasma whips and the most powerful blasters Turgon had ever seen – came up before Fingon. He had turned his own craft around then, dodging the laser blasts that were coming thick and fast all around him, spinning and weaving through the wreckage floating in space. But he had been too far away, and Fingon was fighting, dodging the ensnaring plasma whips in his agile little ship and firing his laser canons at the vast machine before him, blowing smoking holes in its outer shielding _. He’s winning_ , Turgon had even though for one wild, jubilant moment.

He had been disabused of that particular notion quickly enough.

The plasma whip of the second balrog had struck sparks from the Valiant-II’s hull, adding to the confused spin of colour and lights that was the outside world as Turgon had swerved to avoid a mass of twisted, blackened wreckage drifting sedately towards him, and then fired at an orc mercenary in a commandeered Ñoldorin battle ranger, sending the enemy spiralling away in a whirl of black smoke and blinking warning lights.

When he eventually righted himself, his own warning siren wailing – he must have been hit, he remembered thinking in a panic, though the outside of his ranger had not been breached, thank Ulmo – it was already too late.

He could see the whip curl around Fingon’s ranger, though he knew he must only be imagining the scream of metal tearing like paper; there was no sound in space.

Turgon had slammed down on his thruster then, ready to call through to his generals, bring them, perhaps, to his brother's aid… that was when it happened. The blast wave was white hot, surrounding Fingon’s ship in a blinding orb of pure blue-white light, spreading outwards with horrifying speed. Then he was jolted in his seat, slamming painfully against the wall of the command capsule despite the belts that held him. For a moment he thought he had lost the controls, every warning on the console set to blinking and flashing all over again.

He had peered desperately out of the window, trying to see in the shadow of the looming black planet, so near.

Where the ship and his brother had been, there was only gas and radioactive dust, heated to glowing red by the blast. Cooling even as Turgon watched.

“Planetfall in… three minutes and thirteen seconds” said the console, interrupting his thoughts, snapping him back to the present. Turgon let his eyes flick open, taking in the view through the wide window of the royal ship carrier’s observation deck. There it was; Gondolin in all its fair green glory. The slightly reflective shine of the seven-layer polymer membrane that enclosed the planet’s atmosphere, the nano-particulates’ reflectivity shifting a little even as he watched, in a ripple that spread elegantly across the surface.  _They must be running climate tweaks down there in the control centre_ , he thought, disorientated by the sheer ordinariness of it.

Gondolin had been a little more than an unremarkable rocky planet out in an uninhabited orbit known primarily for its asteroids when he first come here, but Ulmo had shown him its potential, helped him to terraform it into the precisely climate-controlled, atmospherically optimised greenworld it was now. He watched as one of the eagle patrol fleet drifted through his field of view, doing a routine scan for unknown intruders and then flashing him the customary digital salute on his screen.

He could see the little black square of the Gate Station now, with its landing platform. Before, they had had to leave in a column of ships, but, he realised with a twist of his stomach, so few of the original fleet had returned that even all of the hulking carriers would be able to occupy the airlock bay side by side.

The com crackled into life. “King Turgon, this is Ecthelion. The Gate guards are radioing me, we have clearance to land the fleet. I’m just waiting on your word.”

“Confirmed. Give the order to take the fleet down, and quickly. Oh, and Ecthelion?”  
“Yes?”  
“See what you can do to fast track the airlock” said Turgon. In ordinary times, Ecthelion had long been head of the Gate guards himself. “I know you’re a stickler for passes and clearance and precautionary time delays, and I know that was part of my own brief to you when I put you in charge at the Gate. But we’ve got wounded people in the medical bay, who need better help than we can give them up here.”

“Of course, your Grace. Over and out.”

The waiting in the airlock, when at last they docked, seemed interminable despite Ecthelion’s efforts. Finally, with a hiss, the great bulkheads slid open. The brilliant, warm white gold glow of the interior lighting – spectrally optimised for both photosynthesis and for Quendian physiological and psychological benefits - bathed Turgon as his ship descended gracefully to the palace’s landing stage at ground level.  

All around him, the other ships in the fleet were landing, disgorging a stream of his soldiers and pilots onto the wide, flat expanse of the landing ground, a sudden rush of activity. There were people rushed by on stretchers, sirens triggered, medical gear fetched. Drawing himself up tall and steeling himself for what was to come, he left the command deck, stepping outside onto his own planet once more.

In a scant moment, Idril was there, flinging her arms around his neck in a forceful hug. He let out an involuntary cry at the lance of pain in his side from his broken ribs.

“Ah! I’m sorry!” Her face was a mask of fear. “Are you hurt, then?”

“It’s nothing serious,” he said, relief flooding over him merely at the sight of her.

“Really? Valar be praised, Atar, I’m so glad you’re safe,” she exclaimed, hugging him once more, gently this time. “There were so few who returned, and so many wounded, I thought maybe…”

He felt a plunging in the pit of his stomach at her words. He gently pushed back a lock of hair that had fallen across her face. “Itarillë…”

“Uncle!” Maeglin’s voice was loud and urgent behind them, and he turned quickly. “The wounded are being tended, and the Gate has been shut. But they’re saying…” he hesitated for a moment. “People are saying that now that you are king, we cannot simply shut our gates on the rest of the Beleriand system, especially in the state of chaos after the loss of its king… uh, your brother. I am sorry. But what do you command?” He waited, breathless.

Turgon tried to think, but before he could decide anything, Idril was staring between the two of them in sudden shock. “Atar… what is he talking about? Did something happen to uncle Finno…?”

Maeglin looked horrified. “Oh… I am… you wouldn’t know yet, would you?”

Idril glared at him, her hands on her hips. “Know  _what_ …?”

“It’s true” said Turgon suddenly, looking at his daughter sadly. “My brother is dead. We only survived because of the sacrifice of the house of Hador. But we few  _did_  survive, and I must take up my brother’s crown. I am high king now.” The words were difficult to get out, even more so than he had expected.

Idril stared at him, momentarily lost for words. “But…”

Turgon almost laughed then, bitterly.  _But. That had been his first thought too, for how could such a thing possibly be true?_ He sighed, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I know, Itarillë. I know. Lómion…” he looked at his nephew, who was standing there at a loss.

“I’m sorry” Maeglin muttered, his face twisted. He was looking at Idril. “Sorry that you had to find out… like that. Sorry for your loss. I never knew him, and I’m sorry for that too.”

She closed her eyes, looking down and pinching the bridge of her nose, and silence descended on the three of them as people flowed around them and emergency sirens blared.

“What will you do?” said Idril at last, looking up at Turgon. “About the rest of the Beleriand system, I mean. Do we send out aid?”

“What aid do we have to send?” asked Maeglin. “Besides, now that the location of this planet is known, we will have a much harder time entering and leaving in safety.”

“I think you’re right” said Turgon. “The leaguer is broken, the peace at an end. The servants of the Enemy will be out on the hunt.” He paused, thinking. Fingon’s host had been not merely routed but near annihilated by the explosions, the few who had survived coming to Gondolin on these very ships that surrounded them now. He knew there was no hope for the remnant of the Edain, much as the thought stabbed at him with guilt over his former wards.  _No; the only people left out there to save are the traitors anyway, them and the sons of Fëanor._   _Which,_ he thought, clenching his hands into fists _, was essentially the same thing, or one day would be._  He thought of Fingon’s assurances before the battle.  _Maitimo will come. His host will back us up. We will crush our enemy together._ Turgon ground his teeth. He made up his mind.

“We close the Gate” said Turgon. “No one goes in or out. We are self-sufficient in terms of fuel, and our food and water supply is sustainable, and - ”

“Metal will be a problem” said Maeglin, immediately. “Rare earth elements especially are growing alarmingly scarce, and - ”

“Then you and your people - just a select few, with red security clearance, vetting, background checks, all that - you can get passes to leave,  _only_  for latching onto the asteroids and mining them for minerals. But other than that, we’re going into complete lock-down.”

Idril was frowning. “Atar,” she said. “Are you sure this is what you want your first decree as king to be?”

He felt the pain go through him once more, acute and guilt-laden.  _No. No I am not._  “I must protect our own people, as a priority” he said.

Idril sighed deeply. “Of course you must.”

Maeglin looked once more as though he knew not what to say. On an impulse, Turgon pulled them both into his arms in a tight hug, heedless of the bandages and the pain in his ribcage for a moment at least. Maeglin’s body tensed for a moment, them relaxed. Idril clung to her father’s neck as though she were a mere child again, heedless of his bulky flight gear and the crowd pressing in around them.  

They all drew back at once, Turgon holding his daughter’s and his nephew’s hands.  _They are all I have left now_ , he thought with a pang, looking from one face to the other.  _These two and the city will be my legacy, when the Enemy comes for me in the end. I will not let harm come to them, nor to anyone on this little world I have built. I am a true king now, and I will die before I see it fall into ruin._


End file.
